Variability, heritability and genetic advance studies in French marigold (Tagetes patula L.)

Abstract

A field experiment was conducted at Main Experimental Station of Department of Horticulture, Narendra Deva University of Agriculture and Technology, Kumarganj, Ayodhya. The experiment was laid out in Randomized Block Design with 10 treatments and replicated thrice. The healthy seedlings were transplanted at a spacing of 30cm X 30cm. The observations were recorded from five plants selected randomly in each genotype per replication for 10 characters namely, plant height (cm), stem diameter (cm), plant spread (cm), number of primary branches, number of secondary branches, days taken to flower bud initiation, duration of flowering (days), number of flowers per plant, flower weight (g) and flower yield per plant (g). Analysis of variance showed highly significant differences for all the ten characters. In general, estimates of phenotypic coefficient of variation (PCV) were found to be higher than their corresponding genotypic coefficient of variation (GCV). High broad sense heritability coupled with high genetic advance was reported for number of flowers per plant (h2 = 99.62%, GA = 59.78) and flower yield per plant (h2 = 99.53%, GA = 133.82), showing additive gene effects and shows the effectiveness of selection of these characters.